Song: 'Where Dragons Rule'Artist: Crimson GloryAlbum: Transcendence (1988)Genre: Power / progressive metalComments: This whole album is amazing, but that quasi-Asiatic lick at 0:40 on this track is what really bowls me over. Not to mention that the lyrics are dripping with cartoony cheese, but the fact that they are belted out with extreme sincerity at the top of the late lamented Pat 'Midnight' McDonald's lungs just makes them that much more awesome. 'We KILL for the Dragon!'

Song: 'The Killing Words'Artist: QueensrÿcheAlbum: Rage for Order (1986)Genre: Power / progressive metal / hard rockComments: Allow me to take you back in time, to those days of yore when Geoff Tate actually had a voice, could use it to effect, and wasn't a total yob. His vocals are actually what really make this song work so well, as it would otherwise fall into danger of becoming a slightly-better-than-average Foreigner-style album-oriented rock ballad. It's actually kind of a shame it took me so long to pick up Rage for Order given how much of a fanatic I am for The Warning and Operation: Mindcrime - but it is an album of very much the same calibre, and this song is one of my favourites.

Song: 'Ashes'Artist: ThresholdAlbum: March of Progress (2012)Genre: Progressive metalComments: I love Threshold and everything they have ever done, to the point where it's impossible for me to pick out a favourite album (though I'm particularly fond of Hypothetical, Subsurface and Dead Reckoning). Threshold have maintained a surprisingly consistent sound throughout their entire career, but the combination of deceptively-mainstream rock progressions with heavy instrumentation and tight harmonic choruses - equal parts Metallica and Yes - is an eternally-young one when Threshold puts it together.

Some more blood, Chekov. The needle won't hurt, Chekov. Take off your shirt, Chekov. Roll over, Chekov. Breathe deeply, Chekov. Blood sample, Chekov! Marrow sample, Chekov! Skin sample, Chekov! If I live long enough... I'm going to run out of samples.

song: unsuccessfully coping with the natural beauty of infidelityartist:Type o negativealbum:Slow Deep and HardRating: 10/10 love this song love this band, they are perhaps my all time favorite, but this song is very fitting for what i have been going through personally for a while now.

I recently discovered Skillet. I'd heard their name mentioned a lot over the years as a Christian rock but but never gave them any time as frankly my experience of Christian art is that normally it's not that great. A month or so ago my hard rock playlist ended and Spotify started playing similar music, I was enjoying a song so checked to see who it was by. To my surprise it was Skillet and in all honesty I'm thoroughly enjoying their entire catalogue.

Interested in the history behind the novel? Find a list of english language Three Kingdom sources here.

In my car, I'm exclusively listening to is this the life we really want? by Roger Waters. The whole album is pretty good, and feels right at home in Wall-to-Final Cut era Pink Floyd.

At work, I've been listening to Ragnarok by Ragnarok, Polygondwanaland by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and Mirage by Camel on repeat, with a little bit of David Bowie's Hunky Dory and sometimes some Beatles thrown in.

"We spread the time as we can, but in the end the world takes it all back."— Roland Deschain, Wolves of the Calla